Chez

Christ Chelsea ran rings round them and they are harping on about a missed elbow that may or may not have been intentional. Surprised Grants favourites words `spirit of football' don't appear in that report

the HMRC aren't going to give two hoots what a Labour MP has to say on this and in fact are pressing for their money as strongly as ever - they just can't ague with the judges decision. Total nonsense rumour.

I was going to post exactly the same thing. I wonder if future running costs being included as debts? Does the debt figure not take inot account income from previous player sales be it £22m or £0.5m?

hope he does well there. Best of of luck Lee.

I'm with Alpine on this. I went to the JPT games against my better judgement, and I loved the last minute equaliser against Norwich, but I'm struggling to get over excited about the Wembley final. I'm sure it will be a great day, but the painting competition is not a real final in my eyes and I'd even swap a win on Sunday for a defeat in the play offs.

not sure he needs to.

yes, Liam O'Brien and Gael Nlundulu.

The Quay mentioned a strong rumour that with no other genuine interested parties Chanrai is negotiating to buy the club from the administrator.

Pardew well and truly ****ed things up with the formation. We looked all at sea and they deservedly went ahead. He did though show great sense in swapping back to a 4-4-2 and thankfully he was rewarded almost immediately. The first half was decent. Lots of attacking passing football. The second half showing was appauling. No coincidence that Morgan was subbed on 46 minutes and then we hardly put two passes together. Anyone in any doubt as to his importance to the side need only compare the two halves. A good win and a deserved win as they didnt really hurt us (long strike aside) after the first ten minutes. Davis 6 didn't do a lot, a few good kicks and a few bad. Harding 7 very solid as usual. No one bullies him which is great. He cut inside a lot, as you'd imagine, but never in any trouble defensively - which is his job remember. Obviously better on the left but better than Thomas and James IMO. Fonte 9 won more headers than any other play. Possibly more than all the rest put together. At fault for their first (along with seaborne), but after that didn;t put a foot wrong. Hoofs it a fair bit if you were going to be picky. Seaborne 7 not as strong in the air as Jaidi and gets bullied a bit, but he was committed and apart from the first goal he had a decent game. I think too many have made their minds up about him and don't judge him on the individual game performance. Mills 5 some poor passing an crossing very poor especially when given time to think about it. Made me feel nervous, though not really in much trouble. Puncheon 3 A decent run to set up the third, although the defender made it very easy for him by selling himself so cheap. A header on to the bar for the first. Thats the good stuff out the way, the rest was dire. Poor touch, stumbling over his own feet, lack of assertiveness. Just poor. He has gone from our bets to worst in 2.5 games. I just can;t get my head around it. Hammond 7 Best game for a while, although he never got hold of it in the second half showing how important Morgan is. Morgan 9 Immaculate. Outside of the right boot chip down the line perfect weight for Mills to run onto and cross. Was that playmaking I see before me? He's getting better and better. One negative was the over exageration of injury. He is French I suppose. Waigo 5 Not nearly enough for me. I feel sorry for him though as he is a striker. He is our best RM option with the current injury problems and did OK I suppose, but he can do more. Lambert 9 I thought his all round game was better today. The finish was tremendous, just as good as Saturday perhaps. Everytime he gets it he looks likely to score. Barnard 7 lost when we had three up but then found his positon - right in the six yard box, a proper goal hanger. Has anyone scored mroe tap in then him this season. Works very hard, but not a great deal went for him. Wotton 4 won some headers, but his lack of control and confidence tro bring it down and paly showed exactly why we need some cover at CM. Connelly 5 nothing of note.

He was the year above me. Quality player. He got a YTS deal but not sure he actually got a pro contract in the end. He certainly didn't get a first team game. I think he went to Australia to play. Martin Thomas and Paul Sales also from that year. Martin went on to play lower league for many years, Swansea and Exeter I think off the top of my head. Paul was in that Salisbury side in the FA cup TV game a few years back. Other good players from that era (year below and same year as Mathew Robinson) were Jamie Cureton and Darren Eadie. Shame they were not signed onto schoolboy forms by Saints and were touted to Norwich by the former Saints youth development officer. Eadie was quality. Bartlett was from that year and he lost his way badly. After a short stint at Fareham he ended up doing very well in the army. Paul Masters was another top player that seemed to fail to live up to his youth team billing. England Schoolboy and a brilliant player. There was another lad that was at Lilleshall from that year group, name aescapes me, Lee someone. Both were the same age group at Banger and KP. A certain Paul Tisdale was in that same youth team.

why buy a player now if you can't play him till next season? And why buy a player now that you could have bought in the window?

the Owusu loan deal offset by a PFC player going the other way perhaps?

I'm amazed the ticket office treated you so off hand, they are normally extremely helpful. I wouldn't have thought its all that busy right now with Wembley all sorted so you'd think they'd bend over backwards to sort this out. Saint or not there's no chance of me queing up at the post office and then paying for recorded delivery. At the very least I'd want my costs paid for. They have taken the **** with the `booking fees' for this game and made a small fortune no doubt on the 44k tickets (I presume we get some sort of cut).

he earns a fortune from Sky, more than he ever earned at SMS so he can certainly afford to buy a ticket. However SKy would get him in free as would countless other organisations.

he's been here less than a year, there is no real loyalty in football, he's not getting any younger, and he hasn't had a big pay day in his career yet. Four reasons why he will leave if the right offer from the right club comes in. But who in the CCC has the money to gamble on him?

if Grant says the phrase `spirit of football' one more time...

christ, the last thing we want is them bleationg for the next 100 years about them only being relegated beacuse of the premier league point deduction. I'd much prefer they went down even without the deduction.

despite the denials Boateng did go awol, actually has he even returned yet? Pompey will happily let him go for next to nothing.

he showed a lot on Saturday, but I agree he has even more to offer. The lad is going to be some player as I think most people have known since the first few minutes of his first game for us. The step down in level has helped him. I wonder if he would have been as effective in the CCC THIS season. Wright couldn't cover the ground quickly enough. That was his problem.

Avram Grants' non stop moaning about how they have been treated seems to have rubbed off on these clueless idiots. They honestly now believe that the world is out to get them. FFS, the rules state clearly that 9 points is removed should the club go into administration. Why cry about it now? You knew the rules and accepted them along with the £90m TV revenue over the last 3 years. As for the £1m fine, I think they might actually be getting away with it here, as this could well be as a result of breaking the type rules that Luton fell foul of - which saw them lose how many points???

that point only works if you describe Morgan as a playmaking midfielder. Is that what he is as I'd have him down as more a water carrier? If you described him as a defensive midfielder (which I'm not by the way) then you could point to the clean sheet and say he probably had a decent game.

you're kidding right?

firstly his first touch is immaculate. Out wide where the is loads of space you can get away with it, but in the middle it has to be spot on, and his is just that, every single time. This is taken for granted, but it shouldn't be. What he also does very well is take the ball with an oponent up his arse, and he keeps it. Even in the tightest of areas he still comes away with the ball. Yes he passes square a fair bit but he keeps posession. When he misplaces a pass boy do you notice it. Off the ball he is a different player to last season. He works so much harder than before putting oponents under pressure. He made more tackles than any other player yesterday stealing the ball time after time. This was part of the reason they looked so poor. They never got going and never had the ball for long enough to hurt us. Morgan played a big role in that. The dirty stuff, the stuff you don't notice like tracking back are other parts of his game that he has improved. You are right he doesn't seem to unlock defences, but he keeps us ticking over and that is very important. He's like Paul McKenna at Forest (just look at how they have improved with him in their side and how they have struggled in recent weeks without him). He doesn't unlock a defence, score goals or even ass forward much, but boy is he crucial to them as he was for Preston. The abilty to pass and control is expected of a CM, but it doesn't mean they can all do it. This lad can and as long as he keeps progressing as he has done then I'll keep singing his praises. Just out of interest do you miss Saga and Skacel? How are they doing at their new clubs?

why does a player have to make a telling pass to have a great game? By the same account can someone who does make a telling pass have a shocker? What is it you want from MS? It strikes me that all is missing from his game is goals and we're not short of them. I criticised him a lot last season for not making tackles but he has added that to his game along with much greater work rate. He was everywhere yesterday and was the only player to show for a pass, willing to out his fot on it as well as bring it down and play. He's a joy to watch in that form, they couldn't get the ball off him no matter how tight they got. Each to their own. There is always Wotton I suppose. Overall the game was poor and we played poorly, but that doesn't mean some players didn't have good games. Te defence did their job, Morgan had a decent game, Lambert was clinical. The rest of the midfield was well below par and its in midfield that the game is played and the likes of Puncheon, Hammond and Lallana were not up to much so the game suffered as a result. The fact they hoofed it a lot just made it worse. As for the pen, I stand by my comments. As expected the camera angle was from behind and from that angle (and the refs) it looked like a pen, but from behind the goal it was so obvious that he dived. The fella next to me was laughing and doing the diving mime so I wasn't the only one to think he dived. As I said there was the feigntest of touches but nowhere near enough to justify the theatrical fall. It matters not.

not sure dingy is the right word. Its impressive IMO, perhaps more impressive than SMS, though only half finished. The problem is that its way too big for them and what little noise their fans make can hardly be heard.